634 Dr. G. B. Longstaff's Bionomic Notes on Butterjiics. 



be Crastia asela, Moore. This dimorphic mimicry 

 is very remarkable. 



Mortehoe, Devon, July, 1902. The first specimen of 

 jEgeria arrhvoiiformis, Lewin, that I ever saw alive 

 was at rest on the trunk of a black poplar. Under 

 the idea that it was a hornet I knocked it down 

 and put my foot on it before discovering my 

 mistake.* 



Kaudy, 21 February, 1908. A specimen of the Clearwing, 

 Melittia chalciformis, Fabr., seen hovering over a 

 flower was first thought to be a Bomhylius, then a 

 Skipper. It distinctly hummed in the net. This 

 instance is quoted to show that the moth, though not 

 suggesting a protected insect, certainly deceived the 

 observer. 



Simon's Town, S. Africa, 3 October, 1905. I had much 

 difficulty in distinguishing during life some flies — 

 ? Psoas sp., and Prooxichthas sp.— which closely 

 mimicked certain small black, white-ringed Bees, 

 Halidus cdhofasciatus, Smith, ^, which buried them- 

 selves in the flowers of a large Mesemhryanthcmum. 

 In the cabinet the insects look distinct enough, but 

 during life the resemblance, especially in their move- 

 ments and habits, was very striking. f 



Matheran, W. Ghats, 1908. At the end of March, in a 

 time of extreme drought, insects of various orders 

 were, naturally enough, attracted to such pools as 

 were left about the nearly exhausted springs. Among 

 the visitors were many long-waisted wasps of which 

 I secured a fair number, belonging, as I supposed on a 

 cursory glance, to several species. When Mr, A. H, 

 Hamm had set these for me at Oxford, he remarked, 

 " I see that you have taken a lot of Conops along 

 with the wasps that they mimic." Critical examina- 

 tion revealed : Hymenoptera : — Eiimenes ? arcuatus, 

 3; Uumenes sp., 1 ; Polistes 1 stigma, 3 ; Icaria Iferrib- 

 ginea, 1. DiPTERA : — Geria cumenoides, 7 ; Conops 

 sp., 3. 



Mortehoe, Devon, August, 1908. Two specimens of the 

 common British Conopid fly, Physocephala rufipes, 

 Fabr., suggested to me when alive a Trochilium 

 (Clear-wing moth) rather than a wasp. 



* Entom. Month. Mag., 1903, p. 196. 

 t Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1907, p. 380.-; 



